Why Does A&F Not Rebuild Its Brand But Push It Back?

Muscles, perfume, blurred lights, everyone's amazing half naked male model.

MichaelJeffries, 70, has created a Abercrombie&Fitch with a market value of $4 billion for 23 years. Everyone wants to be part of this sexy dream.

In less than 10 years, it has opened more than 600 stores in 19 countries, and the same store sales increased by 40% in the fastest growing year.

The A&F in Fifth Avenue, New York, was next to Gucci and Prada in 2005.

In 2007, when SavileRow Street store opened in London, Jeffries was dressed.

The flip flop stood at the corner and told reporters, "I think we can stay here for 200 years."

But this is all before 2013.

A A&F billboard in 2012.

MichaelJeffries left office in February 2015.

In 2014, A&F's profit was only 106 million, less than half of that in 2012.

In November this year, its annual sales have fallen for 15 consecutive quarters, and only 50 in a year, while the rest fell into a vicious cycle of discounted goods.

The things that A&F had been proud of all the time seemed to be out of work.

The new management wants to get rid of it.

This Christmas, if you walk through the center of New York, Losangeles, or Chicago, you will meet countless red and white A&F billboards.

They replaced the naked male models who used to compete with Guess and CalvinKlein. They only wrote three lines of characters: "for us, people have to say a lot.

They thought they knew. "

(Peoplehavealottosayaboutus.Theythinkthey 'vegotusfiguredout).

At the same time, the on-line YouTube video is no longer attracted by eight ABS.

The protagonist is the 5 young man who is more than 20 years old.

They lie in the grass, sit on the top of the jeep, and wear a tattoo sweater, plaid shirt or sport coat, laughing very fresh.

The video finally jumped out of the second half of the ad: "this is Abercrombie&Fitch."

(ThisisAbercrombie&Fitch)

A&F2016 new advertising for Christmas season

A&F2016 autumn winter Look, do you recognize it?

A&F has been preparing for this round of marketing called "the largest scale in history" for 18 months.

They set up

AshleySargentPrice, the first marketing creative director in history, was formerly the global vice president of J.Crew brand creation, and he also dug up the new brand President StaciaAndersen from Target.

At the same time, there are also re launched.

The official website and the visible digital advertisements.

If you look at the Instagram account of A&F on the day of October 13th, you will find that the contents previously published have been completely deleted overnight, leaving only the red and white advertisements with a little aggrieved reading.

"Our customers no longer seek to enter a small circle and become one of them, but advocate individuality and uniqueness.

The new brand can reflect this confidence and independence, and also reflect our respect for diversity and tolerance culture.

FranHorowitz, global president and chief sales officer, said in a statement.

He emphasized the word "inclusive" and mentioned that he did not want to talk about "Teenagers" because "A&F will be a more mature brand".

It sounds like this is not a brand remolding, but a reversal.

In 90s, the American Teenager fantasies about "cool". He built a brand with his clothing brand.

The golden age of A&F is never related to "tolerance".

Like luxury goods or tide cards, it sells the sense of superiority.

One of the most cited examples is MarkJeffries's response to salon.com's interview with salon.com in 2006: "every school has a group of coolest and most popular children, and some are not so cool..."

Frankly, we just want to be cool. "

Abercrombie group has three brands, the overall positioning is very young.

The target audience of the main line A&F is college students. The secondary line Hollister attracts 12-18 year old adolescents, while AcrombieKids is targeted at children under 12 years of age.

But no matter who the audience is, the design styles of these three brands have been set by MichaelJeffries in the mid 90s of the last century: Sweaters, sports pants, sweaters, T-Shirts, Polo shirts, jeans, flip flops, typical American Western style, or large or small elk Logo.

The stores in the department store also recognize the dark wooden blinds and the dizzy perfume; the dance is deafening, and the young men's models show the attractive abdominal muscles in black and white photographs.

Jeffries collectively referred to them as "the essence of privilege and leisure luxury" (essenceofprivilegeandcasualluxury).

But the essence is not the superficial "naked man marketing".

Before joining A&F in Jerries1992, the brand had a history of 100 years.

It was originally a high-end sports brand for explorers and business leaders. The list included Theodore I (TeddyRoosevelt) and Ernest Hemingway (ErnestHemingway). In 1988, it was bought by a company called Limited for 47 million dollars because of poor operation. It could only sell croquet suits and embroidered skirts.

At that time, LexWexner, director of MarkJeffries, wanted him to come back with this brand.

{page_break}

It's hard to imagine what Wexner really looked at when Jeffries was 48 years old.

He has worked in FederatedDepartmentStores, a department store, and has made two women's clothing brands "preppylook", including Alcott&Andrews and PaulHarris, but all of them ended in bankruptcy.

We can use popular culture to analyze the consumer market of that year.

In the United States in 90s, the youth movie and TV series is ushering in the golden period.

American pie, Clueless, Can 'tHardlyWait...

They are like the first generation gossip girl, which emanates a strong breath of hormones.

A large number of teenage fashion brands in the United States also came into being at that time.

AmericanApparel was founded in 1986, and Aeropostale was founded in 1987. They all like to seize the "sex" which is the most talked about by teenagers, and the most difficult elements to talk about on the table. They emphasize the curve in design, and they also like to take the suggestive scenes of beach and party in marketing.

However, many brands may have overlooked a key point: in every story, the American high school is a tightly guarded little society. The top cheerleaders are cheerleaders, rugby team leaders and student union chairmen (think of the lyrics of TalyorSwift, "She'scheercaptainandI'monthebleachers").

They are arrogant and have the perfect value, family background and absolute right to speak.

Everyone secretly wants to squeeze into this circle. It seems that high school life is not a waste.

Clueless

AmericanPie

MarkJeffries sniffed this.

In fashion, this circle is easily replicated.

It is not easy to make a hundred trials - for example, luxury goods are high input and high pricing, while tide cards are limited and small niche culture is created - but this requires strict and meticulous control and execution.

This is very suitable for MarkJeffries.

His frenzy of detail and aesthetics is almost neurotic.

According to the reporter, when he took office, Jeffries wrote a 29 page "LookBook" for salesmen to read. It sounds like the rules of the student union: girls can't make up, nail polish or tattoos.

Don't wear jewelry.

Hair keeps natural color. It's better to grow longer.

Boys remember shaving.

Greeting can only be said: "Hey, what 'sgoingon?"

The store manager spends a day at a local college looking for good-looking children as shop assistants, starting from brotherhood, sisterhood and sports associations.

Not only that, but every week, Jeffries sends out a timetable for all stores, detailing every job that must be done, including how clothes should be displayed -- hanging shirts to unbutton the first button, and two pieces to be folded on the counter.

Headquarters representatives will also raid stores, and Rehabteam will be overseen.

He himself is the same: the whole family looks almost the same as A&F store, usually wearing only A&F clothes.

Shareholders of the board said he sometimes had a face to face the meeting because he had just finished his work to ensure that he could always represent the perfect image that A&F wanted to shape.

There are more elements to be used to create filtration mechanisms on the table: shop assistants, as long as they are good-looking and good-looking whites; the muscle men who are lined up in advertising and opening ceremonies; the clothing code numbers are both small and Size10; sell A&FQuarterly, a sex element worth $6, but do not indicate age limits; until 2001, they are firmly discounted by the financial crisis.

Some practices cause parents' complaints, but teenagers prefer to buy them.

In 1996, just 4 years after MichaelJeffries took office, A&F was successfully listed.

It opened 125 stores in the United States, with sales of $335 million and profit of nearly 25 million.

In the same year, AlisaDurando, who joined the company as a designer, told reporters: "we can influence his idea of products, but it will not affect marketing.

He's amazing. It seems that he has been directing a movie, telling his own life story.

The teenagers grew up, but A&F did not.

When this movie is making money, no one will question MarkJeffries's approach.

But in 2008 and 2009, A&F same store sales began to decline continuously, falling by 13% and 23% respectively.

The board began restricting Jeffries's access to the G550 business jet of the Gulf stream. It was the first signal to change.

However, A&F has not changed much. It has become a consumer.

A background that needs to be understood is that as a brand closely related to Native American culture, A&F relies heavily on the local market.

Take the data in 2014, for example, its total revenue in the US market contributed 64%, Europe accounted for 26%, and the rest of the market accounted for only 10% of the total.

Over the past 10 years, the local consumers who grew up in the golden period from 1992 to 2002 have grown up, and the "Teenagers" have changed.

Let me give you an example.

In 2006, the first year of gossip girl's debut and popularity, Twitter was just founded and Facebook was founded for two years. MarkJeffries's remarks on "cool kids" did not cause much discussion.

But in 2013, this speech was reopened and began to turn wild on social media, and A&F's share price fell by 30%.

This is not a parent, but a direct consumer.

Hollywood youth star MileyCyrus, EllenDegerneres and KirstieAlley launched a boycott against A&F. A NGO organization change.org petitioned A&F to "stop saying that teenagers are not beautiful enough to make clothes for all bodies" and received more than 80 thousand signatures.

In the fall, PiperJaffray, a research firm, surveyed the girls in early and senior high schools in the United States, "which brands you no longer wear," and A&F and sub Hollister second, third.

In the same year, its same store sales fell 11%, closing 220 stores.

2014Q4 to 2016Q3

The consumer research report issued by Nelson, HarrisInteractive and Boston consulting organizations began to mention frequently in 2014. Now it seems to be a common sense observation: millennial generation is more interested in sustainability and social responsibility than any previous generation when making purchase decisions.

Guo Ziyan went to Purdue University in 2010 to read and disseminated.

She told reporters: "when I first entered school, I bought a lot of things. I felt very comfortable in college style, and I had a very high price performance after the discount.

But they put too much emphasis on the appearance of the figure. I think this is a brand that sells discrimination, so they sold it later.

Zhang Yunzhen, 23, who has just graduated from Santa Ana State University, feels the same way.

She has an observation: "there is no basis, but I think their shops are often in white places where the proportion is higher than the average."

For example, I read in Ann Arbor, the proportion of whites is particularly high, and the proportion of blacks is less than 1%.

And the white customers of A&F seem to be more than the black customers. It has visited several times in the shop on Fifth Avenue in New York, and I haven't seen any black people. "

The 33 year old Cathy, who has worked in the United States for 2 years, said more directly: "the obesity rate in the United States is so high that many of them are poor and unhealthy diets.

But if you look at the behavior of A&F brand, it sells discrimination.

Winter Normcore

Spring and summer Normcore

Even if we put aside values and aesthetically speaking, the Westerlies favoured the muscular men who are out of date.

KristinBentz, a retail analyst, has been following A&F for more than 10 years. Her view is that after the "Twilight" (Twilight) appeared and became popular in 2008, the dress that teenagers liked became the Edward actor, "pale, thin but fashionable."

{page_break}

"The popular Normcore style in recent years is also very detrimental to A&F."

Hiuman Brand Manager Zhang Zhengyang told reporters, "because its target audience is teenagers, the advertising image has always been a more nude sexy style."

In fact, the A&F westerly wind has been in constant impact since its entry into twenty-first Century. First of all, the fast fashion of 2005 has eaten the market. Then in 2013, the minimalist and light Normcore style directly took away almost all the attention.

Many people are tired of the brand design similar to marketing and similar marketing in 90s.

"How many times do you want to sell a Hoodie? How much is it? It's so expensive, and printing your own Logo on the top, which makes me sick."

EmilyEvans, a 19 year old student at University of Arizona, said in an interview with reporters.

WGSN trend analyst Zheng Mianmian believes that A&F and domestic brands such as Metersbonwe are facing similar problems.

She said to reporters: "at the very beginning, they can catch the characteristics of more than 20 year olds and get good feedback from the market.

But when these people find 30 and 40, a new batch of consumers has already appeared.

At that time, it was too late to cultivate the maturity of online retail channels and change the experience of offline retailing.

The first round of brand reopening in 2015 may be too late.

If A&F wants to change, MichaelJeffries must go.

This call began to appear among investors in 2013.

Jeffries has tied his whole personality and soul to the brand image.

To make him change his brand, he needs the world's most powerful psychologist.

Retail consultant RobinLewis said in an interview with reporters.

In 2015, A&F filled the vacancies from several new executives from RalphLauren, PVH and Lucky, trying to save the brand which had been declining for 13 consecutive quarters.

But they think the problem is mainly in the marketing link, that is, communication with consumers.

"Consumers are not interested in sexy marketing as they used to be," said global senior director of marketing and PR relations in mid MichaelScheiner2015, an interview with reporters.

Now they want to see a brand that pays attention to lifestyle. "

Notice that this is more than MichaelScheiner.

In an investor report last June, AmercianApparel also said that in order to promote stagnant sales, the company would discard the sexy advertisements which were "very offensive to many people" in the past, emphasizing more diversity and inclusiveness, extending the age range to "16-60 year old groups with confidence and natural beauty", "no racial differences and discrimination", "fresh and natural".

It sounds that the strategy that the company just sold for $6600 this month is not different from the new marketing put forward by A&F at the beginning of this article.

And what is the emphasis on lifestyle? The answer seems to be unclear.

This year, the biggest adjustments made by A&F included removing Logo from clothes, stopping "naked men marketing", lighting up shop lights, reducing the perfume smell of 25%, and releasing new sports leisure series.

These actions seem to have nothing to do with the way of life, but more like "MichaelJeffries".

The question is, after "MichaelJeffries", what is the new uniqueness of A&F? Is it designed?

The format of the clothing market has become more diverse and competitive.

The biggest market share is still the lowest price, the fastest and fastest fashion; some of the net red brands that are removing middlemen and emphasizing cost performance are rising, such as Everlane; and more lightweight luxury brand designers and modern commercial brands are trying to tap the potential of the middle class.

According to BettyChen, director of Mizuho bank's director of commercial media, BusinessInsider, "color jeans have also become a new trend in 2012, but since then, few new trends have been seen to occupy the market, and retailers are struggling."

Another problem is that consumers may not be as good as they used to be.

WGSN trend analyst Zheng Mianmian told reporters: "next consumption will not be based on age, gender, but in accordance with the mentality of consumers to be divided.

You can see that many older bloggers abroad are also involved in discussions and may be younger than the millennial generation.

The concept of approaching nature and green environmental protection can be found by people aged 16 and 60.

It is much more important to grasp the consumer's mindset than to simply talk about age.

There may be some chance of survival, but that golden age is gone.

In addition to marketing, all A&F brand restores happen in stores.

"Only when people cross the threshold, do we have the right to control again."

ArthurMartinez said.

But how do we get people back to the store?

From the point of view of channels, A&F's plan is to close stores in the US, reduce inventory and rental costs, and increase the proportion of online channels.

ArthurMartinez2015, chairman of the board of directors, said in an interview with reporters earlier this year, "online revenue may increase to 40% in the next three years."

In the fourth quarter earnings report just released this year, this figure has increased to only 26%, slower than expected.

At the same time, A&F has tried to develop overseas markets which have been neglected in the past.

According to the data released by fortune in 2015, in the 2010-2012 years, because of the declining sales in the local market, Ambercrombie group concentrated on opening stores in Europe, the number of stores increased from 52 to 139, and the European market accounted for 75% of all overseas revenues.

From the point of view of efficiency, this is a good choice, because the overall efficiency of the Abercrombie group's overseas stores is 85% higher than that of the local stores.

However, due to the over reliance on tourists, most of these stores are concentrated in many tourist cities, and the same store sales are more vulnerable to changes in the number of tourists.

In the economic downturn or terrorist attacks on the region, it even fell even worse than the mainland - down 8%, 19% and 12% from 2012 to 2014 respectively.

Faced with these historical problems, A&F seems to think that closing the stores and increasing the proportion of online sales are the most efficient solutions.

In August this year, it just signed a wholesale agreement with Zalando, Europe's largest e-commerce website, hoping to reach 18 million active users of the website.

In Hongkong and South Korea, sales of stores are also being hit by economic and political factors.

A&F has just announced that it is the only one franchised store in the Central Bank of China, which closed early. The cost of termination of the lease is $16 million (about HK $124 million), equivalent to half a year's rent in the shop. The reason given is that "in the long run, it is beneficial to the group".

It also plans to close its flagship store in Korea early next year.

"Withdrawal from Hongkong is not necessarily a bad thing."

WGSN trend analyst Zheng Mianmian commented to us: "the era of retail experience has arrived, the whole industry is upgrading, and the mainland is doing experience and trying new models everywhere. By contrast, the pace of change in Hongkong is not as fast as that in the mainland."

From 2010 to 2014, Abercrombie group store statistics, blue for overseas, red for local

From 2012 to 2014, the same store sales change, blue for overseas, red for local, data and picture source same

Compared with other markets, the Chinese mainland market appears to have more opportunities.

A&F has 180 thousand fans on micro-blog, and WeChat account accounts for tens of thousands of books.

Of its 15 stores in Asia, 6 are in mainland China, and seventh have just opened in Ningbo in November 8th. Other sources say that Sanlitun stores will open in December 2nd.

A&F's online and offline channels may indeed be possible for domestic fashion brands that open hundreds of stores.

Wu Shuang, 26 years old and working in a public institution, knew that brand because of his boyfriend. "He bought fake goods on Taobao in 2011, and he felt comfortable after wearing it, and then bought it on behalf of him."

I don't seem to have seen any stores.

We all like this brand and feel that the price is acceptable. "

There may be many such consumers.

In the huge Chinese market, the fashion trend is still delayed internationally. After the 70 and Post-80's, the "high school complex" of A&F and other brands and the judgment of A&F's value after the consumer's iteration are not much permeated here.

Attracting people to pay is still more cost-effective.

As of press release, a total of 2334 shops on Taobao bought A&F, a shirt priced at 316 yuan, and 153 pieces sold in a month.

But can A&F restore its influence on young people in the golden age?

It is hard to say which answer is "right".

Someone has asked the current president, Martinez, that his answer is: "the best and worst thing about retailing is that it is very dangerous to stand at the top.

The desire for the summit makes you vulnerable.

The world is moving forward, and the company must find ways to move on. "